suspected pirates were then detained aboard the De Ruyter. The suspected pirates were transferred to authorities in the Seychelles on 25 February for prosecution. On 27 March De Ruyters NH-90 helicopter carried out a series of exercises involving landing on the Spanish patrol vessel , the "first helicopter from another Operation Atalanta unit to land on the Spanish warship". On 9 April 2013 De Ruyter hosted Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, Defence Minister Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, and the Chief of Defence General Tom Middendorp on an official visit while De Ruyter was operating off the Somali coast. Persian Gulf deployments On 28 January 2020, De Ruyter left Nieuwe Haven to join the French-Led Task Force in the Persian Gulf. Exercises and groups De Ruyter served as the flagship for the maritime component of the NATO exercise "Steadfast Jazz 2013", which took place in the Baltic Sea in October and November 2013. In September 2016 she became flagship of Standing NATO Maritime Group 2 in the Aegean Sea, replacing the German frigate in the role. De Ruyter was in turn replaced in December 2016 by the German frigate . De Ruyter was then involved in Exercise Formidable Shield off the Scottish coast in 2017. De Ruyter was tasked with providing data from her Thales Nederland SMART-L long-range air and surface surveillance radar to a US destroyer launching a SM-3 missile against a ballistic missile target. On 3 July 2018 De Ruyter once again became the flagship of Standing NATO Maritime Group 2, taking over from the Royal Navy's , with Dutch Commodore Boudewijn G.F.M. Boots succeeding British Commodore Mike Utley. In September 2018 De Ruyter and Standing NATO Maritime Group 2 took part in the Hellenic Navy's biennial multinational naval Exercise Naias 2018. 25 October 2018, the frigate is scheduled to take part in the NATO exercise Trident Juncture which is held in and around Norway in 2018. Between 7 and 8 February 2020, the vessel participated in a joint training operation with the Maritime Squadron of the Armed Forces of Malta which involved various scenarios at sea. She was joined by the Maltese patrol vessel P62. The onboard NH90 was joined in the air by the Maltese AW139. References De Zeven Provinciën-class frigates Frigates of the Netherlands 2002 ships Ships built in Vlissingen